It makes a powerful statement.

Paris may be the fashion capital, but the Middle East has always been mine. I grew up romanticizing the photos of my parents' childhood, from a summer in Saudi Arabia to school in Egypt and family vacations in the UAE. There was nothing more glamorous than draping fabrics and desert suns. I was so in love with Eastern cultures that I wore traditional East African clothing for Halloween in preschool and said I was a princess. My mother even let me wear eyeliner and traditional gold. Needless to say, I felt like royalty.

And so imagine if the region I’ve loved so fiercely was vilified to the point of being watered down to nothing more than wars and violence. How could people not know that Beirut, the city that had inspired the great Elie Saab, was seen as the Paris of the Middle East? It seemed as if the region had two sides: the one we saw on the news and the one that was home to my beautiful aunts, who were better dressed than any woman in Hollywood.

Those of us who have ties to the area have always known that there are few things more glamorous. Seriously, watch an Arab wedding and you’ll want to marry into the family. And then, this year, it FINALLY happened: Vogue was coming to the Middle East. Vogue Arabia launched online last fall, and I’ve been waiting patiently for the first printed copy.

I imagined an ode to the fashion icons of the region or something to encompass the diversity. But what they did was better, and so much bigger. Gigi Hadid, the model of the year, is the first face to grace the cover of the magazine. And did you know that the American beauty is also half Palestinian?

Gigi has spoken openly and proudly about her heritage, and the cover is absolutely breathtaking. With Gigi adorned in a heavily jeweled veil and Vogue Arabia written in both English and Arabic, the black-and-white cover could not send more of a message, especially in the current political climate.

Arabs and Eastern culture are seen as foreign, and people from those regions are vilified and othered, both in North America and Europe. Vogue Arabia could have used the face of anyone, but the fact that they chose an American who is also Palestinian, whose father is Muslim, is a powerful reminder. Those who hate immigrants or hate Muslims don’t realize that the people they dehumanize make up the fabric of their society. Muslims aren’t foreign to America or Europe, and we don’t fit into the box that right-wing politicians try to put us in.

Vogue Arabia could have used a women in a scarf, or a Middle Eastern icon, but they used an American. To show that as Muslims, as Arabs, as immigrants, we are not what others have decided for us. We are diverse, just like Americans.